Review: Hallmark’s “Winter Love Story”

“Winter Love Story” aired on January 19, 2019 on the Hallmark Channel. It stars Jen Lilley as budding author Cassie Winslett, and Kevin McGarry as Elliott Somersby. When budding author Cassie’s first book isn’t selling as well as her publisher hoped, she is slated to go on a whirlwind book tour with the popular fantasy writer Elliot Somersby to boost her sales.

In a nutshell

Liked it a lot!

Plot

The plot is as basic as it comes – a nervous fledgling writer is paired with a seemingly arrogant successful author, and fireworks and hijinks follow.  However, about 20 minutes into the movie, viewers quickly realize that McGarry’s Elliott is NOT arrogant, or pretentious.  He’s confident, and totally okay with Cassie’s attempts to bring him down a peg (her nervous defense mechanism when she’s uncomfortable).

The two are paired to go on a promotional road trip, and the rest of the movie is them getting to know each other.  In that way, this movie was different than some other Hallmark movies.  No crazy deadlines, no big event to plan, and even though the book tour has to be a success for Cassie’s publisher to stick with her and continue working with her, you never felt that her livelihood was in jeopardy at all.  As such, this movie was a pure road trip movie.

Actors

Oh my goodness I really like these actors.  I was already familiar with Jen Lilley from her other Hallmark movies such as 2018’s “Mingle All The Way” and “Harvest Love” from 2017 (just to name two).  I thought I had only ever seen Kevin McGarry in one other Hallmark film, “Winter Castle” from a couple weeks ago.  However, his iMDb profile shows he has been in a few other Hallmark movies, but I just never took note of him.  But in this movie?  I noticed him.  He was GREAT.  Jen Lilley has four degrees of separation from Kris Polaha (Jen Lilley was in Head Over Spurs in Love (2010) with Richard Riehle who was in The Lesser Evil (1998) with Tony Goldwyn who was in The Substance of Fire (1996) with Andrew Pang who was in Petty Crimes (2002) with Polaha).

Chemistry

The chemistry was fantastic in this movie.  These two actors NEED to make more movies together.  And I think it’s that chemistry that made me take notice of Kevin McGarry after all this time.  These two clearly figured out how to mesh these characters together, and their reactions to each other (both verbal and non-verbal) were fantastic.

Feelgoods

There were a few feelgoods in this movie.  First, I liked how encouraging Cassie’s mother was, and how she did not henpeck Cassie about her struggling career (Cassie’s mother was a famous author and lecturer and the movie made a point to mention that if Cassie cashed in on her mother’s name, she’d sell books).  Near the end of the movie they have a nice heart to heart talk that was a feelgood moment.  Also, I appreciated all the simple conversations that Cassie and Elliott had.  As I said, this is a pure road trip movie so there aren’t a lot of shenanigans – just good conversations and getting to know each other.  Because of this, you really got to know the characters quickly and appreciated their growing friendship.  The coin flip scene in particular was really nice, when he clearly lost the coin toss but still gave up his nicer room.

Tropes

Y’all, I spent so much time just enjoying this movie that I didn’t take note of many tropes.  They did have a baking montage of sorts (but with hot cocoa instead), and she DID drink it with two hands (one of my favorite Hallmark movie tropes).  She did fall in the snow, but it wasn’t a “slip and fall but land in his arms” fall – she just literally fell in the snow (which made me laugh).  Really, other than that, there wasn’t much.  But as much as I love my tropes, I was not disappointed by the lack of them.

Did I Hear/See That Right?

And similar to the tropes, there were very few moments of confusion in this movie.  The big one related to Cassie’s anonymity.  The movie made a big deal about the fact that she did NOT want to trade on her famous mother’s name in order to become a successful author.  And yet, in the first TV interview they had, the interviewer asked her about her mom, and whether her mom supported her.  I thought we’d end up with a minor plot point about her being “outed” as the famous writer’s daughter and how that affected book sales.  But nothing came from it.  So I guess it’s not a big deal to be described as the daughter of a famous writer after all?

Re-watchability

Would I watch this again? Absolutely. In fact, I may go check my TV right now to find out the next time it’s one (answer: next Saturday, January 26 at 6 p.m.).

The Ranking

So where does it fit in the rankings?  I knew going in that it would be coming in first place thus far for Hallmark’s Winterfest 2019.  I honestly thought it would get more points, but the fact that it did not have as many tropes as I like gave it a lower score than I expected.  But it still got HIGH marks for the actors, their chemistry and the feelgoods.

1. Winter Love Story (air date: January 19) – 725 points – final weighted score: 117.8 points (77.2%)
2. One Winter Proposal (air date: January 12) – 635 points – final weighted score: 100.8 points (66.1%)
3. The Winter Castle (air date: January 5) – 605 points – final weighted score: 92.4 points (60.6%)
4. A Winter Princess (air date: January 18) – 540 points – final weighted score: 78.5 points (51.5%)

To see my entire ranking of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!

What are your thoughts on “Winter Love Story?”